Law Blog

In California you are required to “maintain” your corporation. This means that you must make sure to legally document events and decisions happening in your corporation. You can document it in meetings or through corporate resolutions and consents.

In addition, you are also required to have annual meetings where you go over the status of the corporation and elect officers/directors as well as handle any miscellaneous things that come up. During this meeting you are required to take official notes – also called “minutes.” This is so you have a log of your corporate activity. Generally you have to do this even if you are the only shareholder, director, and officer.

Most of the time, you don’t have to file your minutes anywhere. Many times people are reluctant to keep accurate records or document minutes because they think they will never need it since they don’t have to file it or submit it anywhere. The problem comes up if you are audited by a government agency for some other unrelated issue and they ask for these documents or if you are sued and you do not have appropriate corporate records. The law requires you to maintain official minutes and have them stored in your main office. This not only helps you keep a clean record of what you do, but it also shows that every decision was planned, thought out and discussed.

Three little words…so much stress. What does it even mean?

You may have heard that phrase but you have no idea what it is. I’m going to try to break this down for you.

In law, when you sue someone or when you file (submit) a paper in court you are required to give a copy of what you are submitting to the person you are submitting it against. The act of officially handing a person a copy of what you submitted is called service. When you “serve” someone, you officially give him/her a copy of court documents. That’s it!

The reason why it’s so complicated is because the law sets certain boundaries. For example, you yourself cannot serve the person you are suing. A third person not part of the lawsuit or action has to do it. Usually a sheriff can do it or there are process service companies that dedicate their entire day to doing this.

Service is also complicated because the law requires that you “serve” someone with enough time so that they can defend themselves. There are all sorts of deadlines in place. Of course, its best to hire a lawyer to help you out.

Yes. Courts have held that employees have a lower expectation of privacy in the workplace: You don’t expect to have the same level of privacy as you do in your home. Because of this, your employer can have cameras in the general/main areas of the building. The same is not true for other places where you would expect privacy such as a bathroom or a changing area.

Can My Employer Use My Credit Report as a Basis for an Employment Decision?

Generally no. An employer cannot use your credit score or any information in your credit report to make an employment decision. There are exceptions. For example, if you work for the Department of Justice, as a peace officer, in a bank or have constant access to deposits of $10,000 or more (ie check cashing) or handle personal sensitive information then your credit report can be used as a basis to make decisions.

It is important that you know that before your credit information is pulled your employer/potential employer must give you an authorization form and you must sign it and approve the request.